welcome
If you landed here, perhaps you are curious about Zen and its relationship with meditation — and you’re considering letting the Zen Center have the honor of introducing you to meditation. Another possibility is that you want to strengthen and deepen your existing meditation practice—we can offer you support and guidance on your journey.
There are a lot of well-intended depictions of meditation in popular culture—magazines, TV shows, and countless social media influencers. For now, let’s put aside all of those associations. Meditation is one of the ways we can start to reestablish connection with others. Meditation is not about being transported to another place. It is the technique for building up the paying-attention muscle.
It may sound like an oversimplification, but in practice, Zen is very pragmatic. It’s being with the breath. It’s sitting still in both your body and mind. Meditation is an opportunity to be with yourself, being with breath and whatever is arising. It’s a challenging spiritual practice that offers a myriad of possibilities.
Let’s start on your journey together.
New York Zen Center now offers a daily online schedule of zazen and dharma talks and practices through our online platform. You can access the online events using video on your desktop computer, ipad, mobile devices, and phone. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Time.
Please take a moment to review this page before joining the online zendo to become familiar with the schedule, using Zoom, and online zendo forms. As we find our way through these uncertain times, we hope you are receiving some comfort in our meditations, podcasts and dharma talks. We certainly feel held by being together and sharing our practice with you. As you can appreciate, like so many, the NY Zen Center very much needs your support to continue our work. A donation of any amount is most welcome and deeply appreciated. Please give what is meaningful to you.
Three Deep Bows,
Chodo and Koshin
OUR MEDITATION INSTRUCTIONS AND PRACTICES
NYZC’s meditation instruction and practices are grounded in the Soto Zen White Plum Lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995), a Japanese Soto Zen monk, who was ordained at the age of eleven and became a dharma successor in three lines of Zen. He is considered to be one of the most significant Zen practitioners of the twentieth century.
